


Step By Step

by PompousPickle



Category: A3! (Video Game)
Genre: A3rarepairGE2019, Angst, August Mention, Character Study, Introspection, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-15
Updated: 2019-06-15
Packaged: 2020-05-12 12:42:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19229374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PompousPickle/pseuds/PompousPickle
Summary: Things were going well for Hisoka and Sakuya. Really well, actually. But memories have a funny way of rewriting the way you see everything, filling in gaps you never knew were there.[written for the A3 Rarepair Gift Exchange 2019!]





	Step By Step

**Author's Note:**

> Written for twitter user kousoras! Thank you so much for the prompt and the chance to explore both Hisoka and Sakuya as people as they grow up through MANKAI in their own way~
> 
> Set shortly before Risky Game.

There had been snow the night that Hisoka fell in love with Sakuya. They had stared out into the night eating gingerbread silently, and talked about Santa Claus. They talked about sweets, and marshmallows. And they talked about wishes. Back then, Hisoka had assumed that Sakuya’s wishes were simple. He had assumed that he himself had no wishes at all. It took him until the next morning, with snow crisp on the ground and a full stocking in Sakuya’s hands, to realize that he perhaps had a single thing he wanted.

He decided to make the wish come true in the middle of a torrential Spring thunderstorm. The rain was nearly horizontal against the wind, attacking the windows with brute force. Sakuya was huddled in the common room, watching movies alone with the lights off. Hisoka laid down next to him, wordlessly. He scooted in closer during every other scene, until he was comfortably in Sakuya’s lap by the end of the second act. He rolled in and out of consciousness in peaks and tides, until the romantic climax, where the lead shouted out all of his feelings for the protagonist. He flipped over to look at Sakuya, and reached up to dry the tears forming in the younger man’s eyes. Sakuya smiled down at him, and Hisoka moved his hands to cup his face, bringing it down slowly until their lips met.

When the rain cleared two days later, Izumi announced that they found a sixth member for the Spring Troupe, and Utsuki Chikage walked in the door. Hisoka buried himself back into Sakuya’s lap, deciding it had nothing to do with him. And he fell asleep to the feeling of Sakuya cheerfully brushing his fingers through his white hair.

It was a burning, sun-soaked day the first time Hisoka began to wonder how old his wish was. He had wondered if it started with Sakuya’s smile, or with someone else’s entirely. He woke up from a nap to see Sakuya pouring over notes for their latest play, brow furrowed and writing intensely. Unable to take the lack of attention, Hisoka leaned over and placed a kiss on his forehead, then his cheek, and finally- when Sakuya turned his head- his lips. And he smiled at Hisoka. And for a moment, his bright mauve hair turned a pale green, and his eyes melted into someone older. But the smile was there. The smile was the exact same. Hisoka felt his chest hurt for a man that, after a year, he could finally name.

And it was a cold, cloudless autumn morning the day Hisoka realized that wishes had expiration dates.

He watched as Sakuya left that morning for his part-time job, bouncing on his heels as he parted into the world. Someone like Sakuya could go anywhere with his life, with a bright smile and endless optimism. He would only be held back by Hisoka, who could only see the reflection of someone else in the warm creases around his eyes. He simply didn’t have the words to express it, yet. So instead, he found comfort in sleep, and tried to dream of the perfect words to say to get Sakuya to walk away, and to stop throwing a blanket over his shoulders when he slept.

The curious thing about loss was that it felt a lot like having one’s memories wiped away, Hisoka discovered slowly. There would be many days where it didn’t feel like it mattered at all, where he could make his new memories with people he cared about. There would be many days where his old life felt unimportant, and far away.

And then there were the other days. They days where it felt like walking up a familiar staircase, one he had walked a million times. And in his self-assuredness that he knew his way, he would miss a step. A step that he absolutely swore was there before. His foot would falter, and suddenly he was falling, tumbling over how absurd it was to have forgotten that negative space at all. And his body always felt broken under the embarrassment and the pain.  

Before his memory returned, that falter felt commonplace. He had thought he found a way to keep on walking, though. He had thought Sakuya was at the end of that path, pulling him forward. But in the end, Sakuya was little more than a crutch to lean on along the way. He was just an unintentional replacement for something that Hisoka had never knew he lost. But now that he knew August was gone, Hisoka couldn’t look up at Sakuya without feeling like he had used him. So he simply kept closing his eyes whenever he walked into the room.

“A marshmallow to awaken your heart,” Homare pressed the candy against his lips, even though Hisoka’s eyes were wide open. He knew he should feel insulted, but he still complied by opening his mouth, allowing the marshmallow to slide in. He grunted as he chewed at it and swallowed it down, so quickly it could have never happened at all.

“I was already awake, Alice,” he finally pointed out with a single eye roll.

Homare only grinned, grabbing for another marshmallow and tossing it in the air with a self-assured wink. “But you were still lost in a dream,” he added with flair, holding out his hand to catch the marshmallow as it tumbled downwards.

However, before he could, Hisoka reached forward and snatched it out of the air, popping it into his mouth in a single effortless motion. He raised an eyebrow, wondering how his roommate had yet to anticipate his speed, even after all this time. “Your talking was boring me. I was thinking,” Hisoka said simply, and Homare stared at him for a long moment.

His roommate wasn’t one to catch onto other’s feelings. Hisoka and the rest of the troupe had learned that lesson quickly and brutally. However, the more they lived together, the more Hisoka began to wonder if Homare wasn’t changing and growing. He looked much like how he looked right before he burst into poetry. There was something on the tip of his tongue, but he couldn’t quite decipher if it was the time to ask or the time to withhold. Hisoka wondered if he was the only one in the troupe who hadn’t changed at all.

Or worse, if he had changed far too much.

The clouds were beginning to roll in to welcome winter by the time Sakuya truly began to catch on. The thoughts were growing stronger and the nights were growing longer, and Hisoka was growing more and more exhausted. He couldn’t stop thinking about how August would have noticed sooner. August would have called him out on it. August would have woken him up. August would have…

“Hisoka.”

Chikage’s voice was the only one that didn’t sound foreign to him anymore.

“What do you want?” He was on the balcony, trying to make out the stars between the clouds, trying to see the sky at all. He was exhausted, but he couldn’t even begin to sleep. It was just as it always was, the night before a memory broke through. Like he was teetering on the edge of something, waiting to fall over to the other side. He wondered what he would remember. He wondered if it would help, or just make him feel more distant from the place he longed to call home.

“Our leader is falling out of step on stage,” Chikage moved forward until he was completely on the balcony. In an instant, he had slid in right next to Hisoka, smooth and fluid. He folded his arms over the railing, and looked out towards the sky. However, his eyes weren’t searching at all.

“So he’s nervous about the rerun,” Hisoka wasn’t buying into it. Chikage had grown protective of their little family. They both had. But this time, Hisoka was the one tearing it apart. Silently, without intention or warning. He had done to before, to Chikage. To August. He had torn apart their family and forgotten them completely. Chikage had turned into the worst version of himself because of it. Hisoka wasn’t going to let him do it again.

“Is that so? You think he would have told us that. He’s an honest boy. A good boy, as you always say,” Chikage paused, a wry smile forming on his lips. The lights from the outside reflected on his glasses, but Hisoka could still see his keen eyes shine in the night. “At least, that’s what he tells me you always say.”

Hisoka turned to him completely, taking a small breath in through his nose. He should just walk away, find a dark corner, curl up, and wait for the dorms to fall completely into night before silently going back into his room, not a footstep to be traced. “Actually it’s funny, he can’t stop talking about you at all,” Chikage mused, tilting his head as though in thought. “He said you had slept in his room to fill the silence when Citron had left.”

“And now he’s back. So I don’t,” Hisoka pretended he didn’t know where this is going.

“You sleep wherever you please. And you’re not one who fills up much space, even when you do bother to talk.” Chikage stepped just slightly off the railing, anticipating Hisoka’s next step, to try to get to the exit. Hisoka felt his shoulders tense, an old habit from being cornered with no escape route. He swallowed down the urge to fight.

“You’re annoying me.”

“You’re _avoiding_ me. You’re avoiding all of us.” Something was breaking in Chikage’s voice, something he was trying to keep calm. Hisoka wondered if it was his own presence, or if it was simply because Sakuya was involved. He wondered if it could possibly be them both. “What kind of man makes an honest boy lie and say that everything is okay?”

“What kind of man tells him he believes him?” Hisoka fired back emotionlessly, deciding to take another step forward, towards Chikage. He could run. He could easily find a way to run. But Chikage could find a way to chase him, if he so pleased. “He reminds you of August, so you want to believe every word he says.”

Chikage’s smile tightened. And then it disappeared entirely. “At least I can look at him without seeing August’s face.”

Hisoka felt his hand against the collar of Chikage’s shirt before he even registered reaching for him. Chikage didn’t budge, for a long moment. Instead, their eyes met. And through the glasses, his eyes looked different. They didn’t look like April’s at all. Not the April he remembered, in his hazy memories. The glass had distorted him. Or perhaps the clouded moonlight had, somehow.

And then he realized that Chikage hadn’t addressed him “December”, just now.

“Get out of my way,” Hisoka finally said, without removing his hands. Chikage opened his mouth briefly, as though he had something to say, before shutting it again, into a sullen secret. Hisoka tried to swallow down the urge to shake it out of him. The kind of feeling that only Chikage really brought out of him.

“I thought you were done running away,” Chikage finally settled on it, not done picking at the wound that Hisoka had desperately ignored until infection. “Then again, you never did like doing things that were particularly difficult.”

Hisoka felt a full body shudder before bringing his head forward into a full head butt. Loving Sakuya was never easy. He was fumbling every step of the way, his feet falling into places that he wasn’t sure he had ever stepped before. And they had no label to what they were, but Sakuya sat beside him anyway. Kind, and patient and excited to have someone next to him to call home. Someone who could build a family out of nothing. Like August.

No, like Sakuya.

He finally let go, allowing Chikage to stumble out of the way. Out of _his_ way. And Hisoka turned to the darkened hallway of the dorms to see a familiar silhouette standing there, waiting and watching. Sakuya’s shadowed figure took a step away from the door, cautiously but not in fear. He wasn’t running away from the scene he witnessed. He wasn’t running away at all.

He turned to Chikage, wondering if he had been set up, and clicked his tongue. Chikage merely straightened himself out, adjusting his glasses without an expression on his face. Hisoka felt that fall again, stumbling into his own oversights before finding his footing again. “I’m going to sleep,” he finally said, brushing past Chikage, and ignoring the fact that they both knew he was lying.

He made it three steps past Sakuya before pausing. He wasn’t sure if the boy was going to let him walk all the way back to his room or if he was ever going to follow. A year ago, on a snowy night before Christmas, Sakuya would have followed. He would have searched and searched until he found him. Sakuya had certainly changed too, Hisoka realized.

However, in the midst of his musings, Sakuya had taken those three steps and closed them, until he was next to Hisoka, hand around his wrist. “Did you notice I was gone all day today?” He didn’t say it with any ire his voice. Just soft wonder, and kindness. “I was working on something!” He explained, his voice still hushed, but somehow bright. “Will you come with me to see?”

And Hisoka realized that maybe Sakuya hadn’t really changed much at all. He turned to the younger man, and nodded wordlessly, his eyes darting to the corner to see that Chikage making himself scarce, disappearing into the night. “Show me,” he finally said, firmly.

He could hear Sakuya smile, almost, in a relieved breath from his nose as his lips turned up. And when his hand slid down from Hisoka’s wrist and into his waiting palm, it felt like it was shaking. Hisoka tightened around it, almost instinctually. As though it were something he had done for someone else a million times. Only, he could never remember an instance where he had eased August’s nerves. Or even April’s.

Sakuya’s hand tightened back, and he nodded as he dragged him over to the kitchen, where the warm smell of baking had been permeating the dorms all day. Hisoka had noticed, but never felt the urge to investigate. It wasn’t marshmallows, after all there. There was no purpose. Plus, the kitchen was a place where too many people came and went. It was easy to get trapped into a corner, or for people to wind up behind you or underfoot. It was easier just to stay out, and wait for the food to come to him.

He didn’t mind being in close quarters with Sakuya though. Especially as he grabbed for a large container and lifted up the lid. “Ta-da!” Sakuya beamed, showing off the tray of gingerbread men he had baked. Hisoka furrowed his brow, wondering why the scent hadn’t seemed familiar. Then again, they were still a month out from Christmas, and something like gingerbread still seemed a ways away. Sakuya’s hands were still shaking as he offered the tray forward. “You’ve seemed a little off lately so I thought I could make you something to remind you of…” he stumbled over his own words, for a moment.

“It’s not like you to be dishonest,” Hisoka finally said, the words feeling strange to him. But it’s like Chikage said: only a monster would make Sakuya lie. “Can we sit down and eat? I’m tired.”

Sakuya looked down at his cookies and nodded. Hisoka walked to the common room and turned on a single light, washing the area over in a dull yellow hue. He fell down on the couch, watching Sakuya carefully as he placed the cookies down on an end-table. Hisoka reached over to grab one. They weren’t perfect, by any means. But they were Sakuya’s. Something only Sakuya could make.

“I wanted to make something that you liked. So that you could look at me like maybe you wanted to be around me,” Sakuya finally confessed, his words falling downwards as he hung his head. “The way you used to look at me before…” he made a wide gesture, not knowing exactly what to say. Not being able to place the catalyst of that sunny summer day when Hisoka realized that he had been hiding behind a wish that was older than his memory could reach.

He took a bite of the cookie, and realized that like all the new memories he wanted to make with MANKAI, he wanted to make new wishes too.

“Sorry,” he finally said, not knowing what else to say. “Running away has become easy for me these days,” he confessed with a sigh. “Sometimes I feel like I’m tripping over my own feet when I try though.”  

“Hisoka-san is so graceful though!” Sakuya blinked, his voice raising in surprise. Hisoka couldn’t help but snort out a laugh. No, Sakuya hadn’t changed at all, he decided. And perhaps, he hadn’t changed either.

He reached over and patted Sakuya’s head, digging his fingers through bright hair for a moment, taking in the contrast of the colors. Sakuya tilted his head closer, for more of the sensation. “I really like you, Hisoka-san. I never said it before but I really like kissing you and sharing the same bed as you. We’re in the same company so you can’t avoid me forever. So if you don’t want to kiss me or wake up beside me anymore…if you don’t, you’ll have to say it.”

Hisoka bit back a bitter laugh, unsuccessfully. He reached for another cookie instead, taking a bite before thinking on it. “Sakuya has become a reliable leader,” he finally said. He wasn’t just a good boy anymore, wishing to see Santa on Christmas morning. That wish had meant a lot more than Hisoka thought back then. He had wanted so much more than a stocking full of gifts. Hisoka could see that now. “I like doing that very much,” he decided, taking the half-eaten gingerbread and offering it forward. “I like _you_ very much. Sakuma Sakuya.” The words felt heavy.

But they felt real.

Grounding. Guiding. Like Hisoka could walk forward upon saying them, and not feel like he was just filling in for something that was no longer there.

Sakuya smiled, and there was still so much left unsaid. So much for Hisoka to sort out on his own. Sakuya was a grown enough man to know it, but a strong enough man to let Hisoka do it. And he would be that family Hisoka needed until he was ready to say it. The younger man leaned forward, and took a firm bite, pulling back with a smile as he caught the crumbs with his hand. He laughed at himself, and Hisoka smiled back.

And from the corner of his eye, Hisoka noticed that the clouds had begun to give way to snow.


End file.
